What not to say to a guy

Guy keeps saying he wants me to mother his children
been talking to this guy on and off. off part was because of me because sometimes i don't respond or when he asks me on dates. At first i thought it was just cute flirting when he says the children thing and in a joking manner but i think he's serious. he always talks about settling down with someone and he works four jobs. he says he's doing it because he really wants to settle down with someone and build a family. i know he's not dating other people and doesn't talk to too many other people. also the things he says he talks about treating his girl right all the time and how important the girl is but just in casual ways when it comes up. he would respond to my instagram stories all the time complimenting me and casually adding our babies would be cute or the certain mix. then we were texting once and i guessed something right and he said it's the future motherly instinct. also i wanted a dog and he said he'll get it for me and he'll end up with q son. he also asks me on nicr expensive dates. i'm confused is this a fetish or kink or what it's constant but it's also odd because he never gets sexual at all

Ok before I even start, I don’t need there being any a**holes in the comments that will just say the obvious or be very judgmental. I need real genuine answers.
To try to summarize this, I met my boyfriend 3 years ago this month, it started off great then quickly took a toxic turn after 3 months in. We were on & off since then. I have never met his parents or family in general, & have only met a few of his friends. He’s never posted me nor even posted a hint of me. Has even gone to the extent of cropping out my hand from his story once. I will say I have mental disorders , such as BPD, severe anxiety etc that has put a toll on me in this relationship to the point that I became toxic & insecure & jealous. I was very unhealed and hadn’t put in the work to change so it was a constant back & forth battle w him as he was just as bad if not worse than me. His excuse for not taking me serious, making me his, introducing me to his family was that I am toxic & we can’t go more than a month w/o breaking up. He is very toxic himself & has said the most disgusting things to me during fights as well as cheated on me physically, been in a whole other relationship secretly. I have made mistakes but none that amount to his mistakes. I have a snappy attitude w him, I’ve messed up in the beginning (which what I was referring to in the beginning of this paragraph) such as, keeping tinder & getting advice from my very first ex on a number of occasions. (Which I know wasn’t ok) him and I were never official. We talked about exclusivity, but he never wanted to make me his. Hence why I kept my options opened. Till this day he uses all of that against me as if he hasn’t done me dirty 10x worse. I have had my faults, with an attitude problem w him, & other small immature things social media wise, Ex. When a guy would slide up on my stories, I’d say Ty but never would I continue the convo. But stuff like that adds up I’m aware. I have had my fair share of toxicity. I know I’m not innocent, but I can say that I’ve never done anything detrimental like he has. Never to the extent he’s gone. We broke up for almost half a year & just recently a month ago came back to one another. I have grown significantly, I’m not nearly as toxic or anxious as I once was, I’ve changed, I’ve put in the work, & it doesn’t seem like he has. He makes excuses as to why he can’t give me affection, or love Almost like he withholds it from me. Every time I bring something up that’s bothering me, he flies off the handle. He has an anger problem. Always has. Every time I bring up me meeting his family he gets so mad & says it’s bc of me. Bc he needs to know I’ll be here for the long run. But I’ve proven myself time after time that I’ve changed & can be better. I do everything I can for him. I cook, clean, feed his dogs, take them out & try to be a good support system for him as best I can. I’ve tried showing him I’ve grown & only want and adore him. I’ve tried loving him more and more and it’s never enough. I’ve matured and he’s even said that himself recently. He’s treated me like dog shit in the past, I won’t go into description mode,but now he’s treating me better, he just gets so angry if I bring anything up at all that bothers me, he calls it “bitching” “complaining” even if I approach him the right way instead of yelling or being combative. His excuse for not giving me affection or love was that he has a fight coming up (he’s an mma fighter) & is anxious and nervous & can’t give me that love rn. He got so mad. I’m just confused. He gives me the silent treatment & wants to end things over every argument.
So I guess what I’m asking is do I deserve this bc of my mistakes ? Is he right for this? Is he telling the truth about not wanting me to meet his family bc of our past toxicity? I’m gaslighting myself on & off, telling myself that I need to put up w this bc I’ve made mistakes too, & that I need to keep proving to him that I’m worth it & keep putting up with this?. Like I need to stick w it bc I owe him that. Idk how to explain it. I’m just so lost. He makes me sad & idk whether to stick it out or leave. I know I’m not perfect or innocent. That’s why I’m stuck.

Sorry! Y'all are probably sick of me. FF12's just been a bit of a hyperfixation for me recently, so my job combinations have been something I have been overthinking a lot. This is my last revision, I promise. Anyway, the final revision is as follows:

• Vaan - Knight/Bushi (Belias, Hashmal, Exodus, Mateus) (50, 75, 125)
• Balthier - Shikari/Time Battlemage (Adrammelech, Zalera) (50, 75, 100 - 75, 100, 125 after obtaining Yagyu/Mesa)
• Fran - Red Battlemage/Archer (Zeromus, Shemhazai, Cuchulainn) (50, 75, 125)
• Basch - Monk/Foebreaker (Ultima, Zodiark) (50, 75, 125)
• Ashe - Black Mage/Machinist (Famfrit) (50, 75, 125)
• Penelo - White Mage/Uhlan (Chaos) (50, 75, 100)

First, let me acknowledge that, yes, I know I don't have to use every single job. However, I find it pretty satisfying to do so, and more interesting as it makes me think about what I am pairing up more.
Vaan is going Knight/Bushi, which is an obvious combo. Amazing dps character throughout the game, and probably the most consistently loved combination in this sub. I feel like I don't need to say more than that as far as the combo itself goes (you all know about White Robes + Excalibur). Espers grant great supportive magic and HP boosts. Belias is kind of a nothing esper, so it's just there for the early game potion boost. Quickenings chosen based on efficiency and unlocks to maximise HP. Basch used to be this combo, but in future playthroughs, this'll be Vaan's role, solely because he has slightly better magic than Basch, and can therefore take advantage of his magic and katanas just a tad bit more.
Balthier is going Shikari/Time Battlemage. Yeah, yeah, I know. "What about Black Robes Yagyu?" I've had this discussion a fair bit the last couple of days, and u/SpawnSC2 brought up some great points:

• Black Robes ONLY boosts Yagyu.
• Heavy armour boosts all of the ninja swords.
• A lot of endgame enemies absorb dark damage.

The other thing here is that, as I already said, I like rolling with all 12 jobs in play as a preferred play style. Is it optimal? Probably not, but it is fun for me. Given this, I already have preferable placements for all of the mystic armour users, so Shikari and Time Battlemage are basically what I had left after pairing everything else up. It's not like it can't still get the job done though, and it does mean I get Hastega long before getting Famfrit. Espers grant Ether Lore, Raise and more HP. Quickenings are based solely on the noted ninja sword placements.
Fran is going Red Battlemage/Archer. This one has been in a bit of contention in my discussions, because some of you love this combo, and some of you think it is overrated. And yes, I know she's the slowest bow user, but she's going to be primarily casting. Fran starts off with the tier 1 spells for white and black magic. This means she is capable of casting from the get go as a Red Battlemage, whilst using maces and shields if necessary. Later on, when she gets access, she can boost fire damage with Burning Bow, and dark damage with Black Robes. Archer allows her to basically be a chemist, getting all the lores to maximise the potential of remedies, and with a Pheasant Netsuke, her Phoenix Downs become Arise Motes. Espers get some extra spells, including black magic -aga spells, and quickenings are cost effective and gain +435 HP, allowing Archer to also nab +390 HP.
Basch is a Monk/Foebreaker. Does this not suit his tier 2 quickening perfectly? Yeah, I've gone back to this combo. Tanky Black Mage wasn't worth dropping Kanya + Genji Gloves. Again, this is another combo where you guys all know what it does. It applies breaks, it does tons of damage, and late game, it can provide some semblance of support thanks to Bravery and Renew. Espers get the magic and Swiftness boosts, and quickenings get some magic and a Phoenix Lore.
Ashe is doing a combo I don't see many people mention, but it is probably a thing. Black Mage/Machinist seems to be pretty good from what I can see. Black Mage nukes as usual and has the staves to boost elemental weaknesses against stronger enemies, and now has guns has a reliable source of stat ignoring damage if magic is locked. Guns also allow Black Mage to cover missing elements via ammo that shoot earth, water and dark damage. Black Robes with dark elemental bullets has its uses. Famfrit is obviously needed for the secondary time magic user, and the quickenings gain more HP.
To finish up, Penelo is a White Mage/Uhlan. Again, another combo I don't need to overly explain. White Robes + Holy Lance, yadda yadda yadda. Penelo gets Chaos for Aeroga (making her the only other consistent wind damage user other than Ashe), and her quickenings give her some tier 2 black magic, which can be useful earlier in the game. The quickenings also grant a Battle Lore and some more HP.
And with that, I think I am finally happy with my squad. Would love to know what you guys think (although I already know some of you do not like Shikari/Time Battlemage, despite my reasoning).

Im 28 M and she is 27F. We started dating in early 2017. I was a single dad when she met me and we clicked right away. Unfortunately I didn’t have proper boundaries set with my babymomma which caused my relationship with my new gf to become difficult and stressful. I did set boundaries and I was showing her that I was focused on her and my kid and no one else. We were good for a while. About two years went by and at this point we are together like she is my girl my rock my partner. Unfortunately her and I did have problems. We would argue over simple stuff and we both had some anger issues we were working on. At the end of 2019 she chose to take a break and left me but not really left me. Her and I would still go and spend everyday together after she made her choice to take a break. So that kinda messed with my head and in my heart I knew I wanted to be with her so I did whatever I could to be with her. She felt the same way but she put restrictions on me. I wouldn’t be able to hug her or hold her hand. She would tell me we aren’t together remember that. Even on new years we spent it together I went for a new years kiss like how we did the year before but she refused. It was my first time dealing with something like this. So I chose to just keep it going hopefully one day her and I get back together. She’ll see that I’m working on myself ti be the very best version of me for her. Fast forward to march of 2020. She is having me drop her off earlier and earlier at her house. Then one day I went on. Her instagram. I trusted her so I wouldn’t check her stuff. But this time I did I checked her tagged photos and right there was a picture of her with some guy hugging and kissing. Caption read” Loml❤️” I lost it. I called her she didn’t answer I told her I knew what was up and that she had a new bf. I told her thanks for lying and making me think I’m the problem. Her response was “I’m not doing this right now. I’m going ti block you”. She called me the next day asking if we could talk. Of course I went and talked to her. Before I knew it. Her and I were hanging out like normal again. Except this time I would drop her off early and we were back to having sex. She would still go and be with the other guy at night but during the day she was with me. That lasted till may when her guy found out that she was still hooking up with me and spending all this time with me. They broke up and her and I got back together. Crazy so far right.? It gets crazier. Fast forward a year later to my 26 birthday , we are still together. We live in our house we have two cats and very stable financially we had just came back from our first vacation. Things were great except for that day we celebrated my birthday and I was working the night shift so I took her to her moms house for her to visit and I would pick her up after. She gets out the car and leaves her phone. I notice right away but she’s already inside. Her phone receives a notification. It’s a Snapchat , I thought it’s her best friend then I look it closely and see it’s just a face emoji. I immediately open it and it was a guy she had been talking ti behind my back. And not only was she talking to him but they were having full on sex talks and nudes where sent and saved. I saw it all. She was calling him names like babe or daddy or papi. I scrolled all the way as much as I could. It stretched all the way back to 2017. Then I realized this kid was the one that she would tell me she was talking to but as friend and nothing more. She told me this 2018. I was naive and trusted her. She came in the car for her phone but instead I showed her what I found out. She said it was all fake and none of that meant anything to her. Clearly at this point I know she’s lying even more but I still chose to work things out. We did work things out and remained together. But now I have trust issues that I’m working past. Fast forward to 2023 October to be exact. We broke up because we were having financial issues and our anger was getting a bit out of hand. But we still saw each other every single day after that. About a month in she began to act differently. She would not let me touch her iPad while to switch to new shows to watch or to scroll on YouTube for us to watch anew video or whatever we wanted to watch. I would call her out on her behavior and tell her she is acting sneaky. She denied and denied said I was tripping. Okay so at this point I know something is up. That’s when she gave me the phone I had bought her back after she got herself her own phone. I get the phone and decided to download Snapchat and instagram. And before I could even blink I see that the phone saved her login info. I had two choices look through her stuff or erase it not invade her privacy. I chose to look through her snap first and right away I see 5 different guys Snapchating with her. At the very top was the guy she had been talking to since 2017 the same guy I caught her up on my birthday. She was planning a vacation to go see him. The guy is stationed in Tokyo he’s a marine. She was telling me she was going to Mexico. But in reality she was leaving to Tokyo and I just had to be ok with it. She gave me a blowjob literally the day I confronted her about it. She was leaving to spend valentines week with him. And she did leave. When she came back she tried to talk to me but I was in shambles. My heart was broken. eventually I gave in and said yeah let’s hangout. Before I knew it we were spending everyday together again and we were behaving like a couple again. But then came reality hitting me hard. I was using her iPad earlier this month and I went on her calendar to figure out a date for us to go on a trip. When I opens the app I saw may 31st listed as Tokyo trip. She was leaving once again at the end of the month and wouldn’t be back till June 7th. My world once again came crashing down. She said sorry but was still going and she tried to say she is doing it because she wanted to travel. It’s all bs on my mind because her and I could’ve traveled anywhere we wanted to. Now it’s the week of her leaving and she tells me that when she comes back we’ll work on being together again. I know it sounds like I’m an idiot and rightfully so. My actions of taking her back over and over have made it be ok for her to do this. I’m confused and pretty messed up in the head that I don’t know what to do or how to handle any of this anymore. Is it better to just leave and work on myself without her anymore or stay and wait for her ?

When I look around my university what do I see, the same type of guys with girls. I see a lot of fucking ugly guys like me all alone. I kind of suspected it but when I was taking biology we learned about how mating works and that looks is just part of evolution. It makes perfect sense. If you are an ugly guy why would a girl ever like you. I’ve listened to girls talk about how their boy friends mis treat them and cheated and yet they were still into these men. It’s because they were attractive and tall. I don’t see the point in becoming a servant to a women who’s never going to be attracted to me. The last girl I seriously talked to did like my personality and then she would keep making remarks about how I’m too short and all that. She’d tell me she liked me and then keep making remarks how she thinks I’m too ugly to date. Of course people will say you don’t want to date someone like this anyways. Which is true, but they are almost all like this everyone is shallow. I also can’t stand how easy girls can enjoy the dating world. They can be autistic they can be fat they can be so inept they can’t decide what restaurant to go to. None of this stops them from dating men. They can fall have relationships decide to dump the guy on a whim and get into another relationship even with a guy who is fit and normal and they are not. I’m supposed to think they have life so much harder when they have a whole giant aspect opened wide open for them to enjoy.
I’m not fat and I don’t dress like a hobo or whatever weird shit you’d assume. What am I supposed to think when I’m continually rejected for being myself. That I’m a terrible person and this is why? That’s what I see online when I search about the subject. Maybe the world is just fucked. Maybe everyone is shallow. Maybe dating dynamics are fucked and they have the privilege. The only people who wanted me were old gay men because I was young. Idk why I exist if I’m just a genetic dead end. I work I study what’s the point. No one to enjoy it with. I’m wrong to be resentful when I see people who have nothing but good looks succeed and find love? And then my girl “friends” will make fun of me for being single and call me ugly. They clearly don’t give a fuck about guys like me. Yet if I were 6’2 and had a symmetrical face it would be different.

I'm supposed to be sleeping right now but I can't. he turned 19 this week. incredible how time flies, right? he was 11 when we first met. he was 17 when we last talked.
this will sound so ridiculous but I saw a girl posting a silly thirst trap sort of video. she put a mask on and I got goosebumps. she had eyes like his. crazy how that type of thing can get to you like hitting your elbow on the table. like breathing water. it's surprising and painful and you just have to take a moment to understand and deal with what's happening. god, am I never going to see him again? I shouldn't worry about that, actually. he's not mine and never was and was never meant to be mine, ever. I rationalized the idea we weren't compatible, I even got over his substitute who was equally impossible to have. I'm interested in other guys, I'm living another life. I was doing so well, why, why does it keep haunting me? how do I purge his imprint off my mind?
I should burn his things. his phonecase, whatever other stupid fucking memorabilia my emotional trash of a brain decided to keep and all the things I wrote and never sent him. I wonder if he thinks of me. I wonder if he regrets never kissing me. I still hope, deep down, that one day we will meet as I wait for the train I take everyday and to his eyes I'll be pretty, and he will think of me as sweet, smart and fun. and he'll hurt just as much as I do. hoping is a vile little thing when it comes to the real word. a sadistic tool for fairytales to take revenge on the miserable for existing. I'm tired of hoping for things. I'm hoping he's not doing so well either, even if it's selfish of me. but he grew charming, good-looking, experienced since he ever thought of me kindly and I can barely see myself in the mirror and recognize the glass girl without crying. thinking about it, I'm useful for something after all. time to check his instagram again. still nothing. I kind of wish he would just post something, even if it hurts me, just so I could have something real for once. maybe the illusion of closure. he never told me how he really felt and I still hope he'd say something more than just an experience.

So a bit of a TIFU story for you guys so a few weeks ago I met this girl from tinder and she was OK looking and absolutely DTF I mean absolutely Down she was dirty talking me n shit over Snapchat
I'd never even tried to have sex before so obv I didn't have condoms so I went to the store and bought the spermicidal lubricant kind thinking I could kill two birds with one stone like what if I make her pussy dry by drinking my water too fast or something and also I definitely wanna kill all the sperms
so I got her on the couch we're watching some dumb Shit Netflix comedy she's resting on the left side of my chest n can obv feel my heart beating heavy I see her look down at my hard dick in my pants so I get to work makeout for a bit then she starts blowing me
It's going good she's blowing me and my dog is in the corner watching and he starts moaning and yelping so I grab a the pillow I was resting on and throw it at him and yell "stop being a faggot" which sorta killed the vibe
So I was like "yeah we should prob just fuck" and she agreed so she's standing by my bed and I have to tell her to take her fkn clothes off and get on there like she didn't know what to do and I'm naked with my socks on trying to hide my ass hair from her while also looking in my sock drawer for my condoms I bought earlier
Now I'd never put a condom on before so I took the condom n put it on best as I possibly knew how
I fucked her for a good 30 mins cause I'm a beast and i was straight slamming her head into my bed board finally I orgasmed n then we went again but I didn't get off the second time n had to jack off in the bathroom
So all is well she leaves I say see ya. Then I looked up a vid on how to put on a condom because I thought maybe mine was too tight or something while I was fucking, and my heart absolutely sank.
I put the condom over my balls and not my penis. I thought you were supposed to tie off your balls so the sperms couldn't leave and go down your penis. It all made sense. I was sorta iffy about the lubricant I was like what am I supposed to do swipe the line off with my fingers and apply it to my dick by hand, and that's what I did while fucking the girl. I would swipe some lube from the condom around my ballsack and put it on my penis.
So that was almost a month ago and then just other day when I was pissing it burned real bad and when my piss hit the water it looked like those nature docs where they go into murky water n the soot gets kicked up and thrown everywhere when a fish goes by. Went to the doc n he said I have clap and got me a medication
Not only that but I get a message from the girl on tinder saying she's pregnant n thinks it's probly mine and that she really wants nothing to do with me because I fuck like I "hate women" whatever that means lol
Anyways that's an update on my life

(This is a copy and paste from my notes app trying to my myself feel better 😅)Hi l'm 17 and a couple a months ago I got into the car of a guy l met on YUBO which is like a teen friend type thing and let give some context. It was the last week of my junior year so school days were half days meaning you could leave early I usually had a guy who I would ask rides for but we were fighting and weren't Talking to each other. So I asked the guy from Yubo for a ride and he agreed to a 25 to 20 minute drive to pick me up and was saying if I was going to give head or have sex... I initially wanted to because I just needed a ride home so he agreed I even went to bathroom and freshened up for it. So he gets here and I immediately notice one he doesn't look like his picture two he smells like fish and three I just didn't want to do it anymore because I was uncomfortable and just didn't want to do it. So he's asking where I wanted to have sex another thing is he had foreskin I personally don't like foreskin so I really didn't want to do it So he starts rubbing my thighs which makes me tense and I try holding his hand to calm myself down I couldn't. I told him I didn't want to have sex anymore and if he could just take me home by saying my dad needed me home. He drives to a parking lot where he wants me to give oral sex I really didn't want to because he smelled like fish. He just kept saying come on just do it and I didn't want to stay in that parking lot and do that I told him I'd do it while he drives me home so l don't even do it I'm just poking my tongue at it I don't want to do it I sit up and tell I'm scared and I'm nervous and maybe we should like her to know each other he just tells me to come on and it's not that serious I said he could just finger me. I regret saying that. It hurt it was painful he pulls into a neighborhood and he starts trying to finger me it hurt. At this moment I was texting my friends to call me so l can get him to take me home l was so uncomfortable and tense. One of my friends answers and l act as if she was my sister while the dude is still trying to finger me it was hurting me. He finally starts driving only if I again do oral sex. I didn't want to. I told him I was scared and Just doesn't Want to be still told me to do it I said what about a hang job. I didn't want to do it again. So he said that was fine he pulled into s neighborhood that was being built and he told me to expose my breasts so he can bum on them. I did. He came on my breast it smelled bad. After that he finally took me home and I called My friend (I had him drop me down the street from my house) I had a mental breakdown and blocked him on everything. I told my friend group and They didn't believe me. I honestly don't know if it's my fault I promised him sexual things but I wanted to stop I feel as if this is my fault it doesn't feel like rape or assault I don't want to put myself in the same category as people who actually were. When I was younger I was touched by multiple men. But I just this time it feels Like my fault yk. I'm sorry if this is long and stuff but l've just been thinking about this. It all feels Like my fault like I Caused this to happen me... Like I go on the rape awareness tao on tiktok because it's something I just think about but I feel like this happenings to me is less serious but it's all I can think about sometimes
I’m finally 19 now I just always think it’s my fault cause I said we could have sex but changed my mind…

So I've been dating my gf for a year and she's pretty awesome, but theres one aspect of her thats just strange and its that she often wants me to be toxic to my friends/family - but she doesn't see it as toxic but assertive, and gets upset if I dont 'stand up for myself.'
But I think we have different opinions on what it means to stand up for myself.
So heres what happened yesterday. My friend cut his finger really bad while making food. He went to urgent care but it was closed. So he was sent to emergency at a hospital near where I live instead. Since I live in the hell hole that is Toronto Canada, the wait time he was given was 6 hours.
Now I have medical training. And he knew I lived close so he asked me if I can help him out instead.
Now, Saturday is my gfs only full day she can spend with me. Sunday shes at her church and volunteers. Friday night shes with her friends. Every other day of the week she has her classes during the day and works at night. So we were watching a movie she really likes at the time and wanted me to see. When I got the call from my friend I told her I should at least check if his wound is serious or not. Because if its serious I might be able to talk to emergency people but most likely I cant help. If its not serious I could just take him to my place, sterilize it, and do any mild first aid that might be required.
She was not happy about that. She said he's already at emergency. He can wait a few hours there.
But idk, I just thought that helping my friend out when the hospital is 5 minutes drive away is not a big deal. I decided to go anyway.
It ended up taking longer than 5 minutes cause I couldnt find him. When I did, his hand was wrapped in a towel that was soaked in blood. But when i removed it I was able to determine it wasnt deep enough to need stitches and I could fix it up at home.
Anyway, I took him to our place, and gave him first aid. The whole thing took about 15 minutes. While I was doing it, my gf kept circling us and even made a comment to my friend saying that he panicked cause of such a little wound? But in reality I'm sure that a lot of blood was spurting out cause of where he cut it, and anyone would panic in this case.
When he left he said he'd just take an uber home. Which was nice cause I didn't want to drop him off. But my gf made another jab for no reason and asked him why he can't drive (she can't drive so its a really weird thing to say.)
Afterwards, she asked me to drop her off at her place because she wasn't interested in the movie or staying over anymore. Today she's been ignoring me all day and only messaged once to tell me shes upset because I'm a 'pushover.'
Tbh I am nice to my friends, but theres a difference between that and being a pushover. Tbh, this has happened before in different circumstances and I always feel like I'm right and she's wrong.
So do you think her response is reasonable? There's other instances where she's behaved similarly I can tell you guys. But on the other hand, I've been told by an ex in the past that I'm not assertive enough. So... idk.
TLDR: Picked up my friend and helped him out a bit, interrupting my time with gf. Now shes upset I'm a pushover.

I don't really want this to go viral or anything but sincerely just want to put all in one place all the things I know about the situation because I don't think it's with people I know irl....
TDLR: true off my chest, my mom is almost certainly emotionally cheating on my dad based on what he's told me and I know way too much about this situation.
My mom was the typical housewife when I was growing up, very young mom to another guy whose out of the picture entirely; I literally can't even remember the dude's face.
My real dad met her when she was still young, single mom and he still fell for her. He loves her so much. His devotion is really boundless for his family; he was a kind of typical dad when I was growing up, working long hours to move up the corporate ladder, make money to get the four of us out of an apartment and into a house. Us older kids, we were his kids, no doubt about it, even when they had two more kids.
He wasn't perfect. He got angry when he dealt with shitty clients all day and came home to a chaotic household. He would get mad/sulky if I didn't great him at the door. He spanked the boys. He broke the glass table once, when he was really angry.
At the time, obviously, my mom was the stay at house mom, cooked and cleaned.... With hindsight, I think her child rearing could've really used some work. We were left alone a lot, her still in the house, but working on finishing school. We were put into after school activities to keep us engaged, but she never really played with us or gave us activities like I feel a stay-at-home mom should. She let me tell her about her day, but she never really engaged with what I said to her, just listened. Maybe she didn't listen.
I remember one time she had a college class and I can't even remember how old I was.... maybe 4? But she left me outside the class as it got dark, because she knew I was a good kid and wouldn't go anywhere.
They were probably too young for this many kids, or maybe even kids at all. Us older kids definitely contributed to raising the other two, we'd babysit on date nights, etc. Not often. But enough.
But my parents eventually made their way to a couples therapist. things got a lot better, for a few years. My dad worked on his anger issues, mellowed out a lot, and they became all about the love languages and how to love each other and us well.
When I moved out for the first time, things seemed good. They seemed stable at least.
But now, 6 years later things have felt.... Weird. What I type below is a mix of things I saw and things my dad told me.
With hindsight, my mom definitely has taken up a lot more space for herself. She works a lot of hours and put the youngest two into a LOT of extracurriculars. The youngest, she said, should be well rounded with their extracurriculars.
Sports. Music. Scouts. She wanted to put him in an art or language class to be "well-rounded". I personally feel like she just doesn't want to raise the kid after school. They're left home alone A LOT. As in, I will call them in the afternoon and they're home alone because everyone else is at work, or the gym or whatever.
I worry for that one.
During last Thanksgiving, my dad said my mom is starting to "blossom". She's always been an introvert, never had many friends, has been a touch judgemental, and stayed off social media. But now she's making work friends, engaging with the community and totally leaving my dad and the kids behind to some degree. She never invites anyone, they have to ask.
But he wants her to grow. He wants her to have friends, so he encourages it.
He starts stepping up around the house; with the pandemic, he became able to work from home half the week, so he does, he drives the younger kids when they need it, manages the house, even learned to cook.
My mom makes a new friend. A guy.
And she's had guy friends before. But my dad says the majority of her texts are with him. She's now on social media.... Posting things for him.
When they go to family events and things, she text him pictures of the events and pictures of herself... Nothing sexy as far as I'm aware, but I can't think of a single guy friend she'd be texting photos of herself unless he's gay and she's looking for fashion advice (he's not gay). And she always seeks him out.
My dad told me this, basically crying. This is the moment I think she may be emotionally cheating.
How can you spend all your time thinking about someone your not with, talking with them almost 24/7 unless you're intensely emotionally invested?
I personally fuck with the LGBTQ+ community, I think my mom is demi and this is so very very close to cheating, as close as you can get without touching.
SHe meets this guy a lot without my dad.
So my dad begs her to go back to couples therapy with him, and she does.
She puts up the boundary that my dad is not allowed to interfere with her friends, that he's just being overly jealous. The therapist poses the thought to my dad "if she decides to cheat on you, there's nothing you can do". The boundary, she told me. The words, my dad told me.
Obviously that hurts.
My dad asks her if she's in love with him (my dad). And she says no.
Obviously my dad is so hurt by this, but their time is up and they have dinner plans with friends.
My dad does not want to go. He begs her not to go.
She makes him go.
She makes him go put on a happy face with their friends when she just probably broke his heart.
I was there that night, for the holidays at that point. I sat with my dad, put a shoulder to his. I didn't know the details of it all, but I saw my dad texting their therapist and saw when he came home and it wasn't good.
When we get home, my mom says "so what do we want to do, family movie? Game night?" I balk. What the fuck is she talking about? Why doesn't she give a shit about my dad, someone she's spent twenty years with who's never shown her anything but devotion?
I say no, and entertain my siblings while my parents go upstairs and talk? for literally 3 hours.
I get called in when I'm getting ready for bed, trying to ignore anything coming from their room.
My mom promises it's nothing crazy, they're not getting divorced.
What?
I just want to go to bed at that point.
The next day, my mom takes me out, explains some of her side of the story but never elaborates on how she hurt my dad so much , just saying he's not allowed to interfere with her friends. I don't ask about that guy.
She says "your dad asked a question that he didn't want the answer to. He got upset when I answered honestly, because you know I'm always honest"
She's a snob and judgemental of emotions so I just stop asking questions.
My dad is trying so hard to keep it together guys.
He has all these tools from dealing with his anger issues, hes's meditating, he's taking complete care of the youngest kids, as best as he can.... He once told me he was scared to lose my mom (like, her dying) because he'd have no idea how to take care of the kids. I kind of think that's what happened.
He's no longer himself. He's quiet. He's very thoughtful. He's so self-controlling.
All this, changing almost everything of himself and she says nothing. He asks her for acknowledgement, a thank you and she says "You should be changing for you, not for me"
I am almost scared for him.
On mother's day, he did everything to make it special for her. He encouraged the younger kids to make her breakfast, take her out for the day, she got to go to the spa with her lady friends.
She never thanked him. She never thanks him for his support.
He finally realized that it's a fight. someone has to give in, either her, just SEE him, or he's going to give up someday.
How do I feel about all this?
I might hate my mom. She's a shitty partner, and not a very good parent right now either. I think regardless of how she views it, she is putting this one guy on a pedestal over everything else in her life. I think she is just waiting for my dad to give up.
Part of me wants to tell him, that she's stubborn as al hell and she's not gonna give up. I think he knows it.
But he loves her so much, and I don't think I should know even half of any of this, but I've seen too much. I know too many things that I'm not allowed to tell anyone.
should I encourage him to tell her that even if she doesn't see this coming to a divorce, that's where it's heading? Should i encourage him to divorce her?
Should I explain to him what emotionally cheating is?
God, the youngest kids. They're the ones suffering the most of this and I don't even know if they know it.
I wish every conversation I had with anyone in that household doesn't have me standing there with the question on the tip of my tongue; "do you know this is going to end and painfully?"
I wish I could see my mom as a good mom again. I wish I could see my dad a whole person again.
Thanks for reading and while this is a true off my chest, god I'd probably take any advice.

We met ~3,5 years (7 semesters) ago at our university during his orientation week. I will spare you the details of how exactly we met. We basically flirted for 1,5 years before one of us (let's call him Chris) was brave enough to ask for a date. My strategy was to play wordl with him. It gave us an excuse to start texting eachother everyday. I liked his humour and even when the jokes were bad somehow I found them hilarious. We had a nice understanding of eachother and talking to him always felt like a safe space. I never dated anyone before because I never believed that anyone would be romantically interested in me. I would say that I am boyish. Most of my close friends are male and I do feel more comfortable around them than around other women. I study mechanical engineering. At my university about 15% of the mechanical engineering students identify as women. I saw myself as one of the boys so I never imagined that someone would like me like that. At that time I was so excited that someone that I liked also liked me back but now I was stepping into unknown terrain. Both of us did not know what to expect since both of us had never been in this situation before. On our "dates" we would just talk like before but there was an awkwardness hanging in the air. We would adress the awkwardness, how it felt stuck and how we did not know what this new situation even meant. He was patient but..I was so scared to mess it up that I was frozen and didn't let anything happened. I was heartbroken but not surprised when after two months he said he wanted to go back to being friends like before. And that's what we did. I did not want to loose a companion like him and I settled for friends. I thought that in time I would get over him. And I think I did. We would hang out once in a while and each time I was more convinced that I had gotten over the heartbreak. A few months had passed and I met a guy (Jeff, 24M) that I knew briefly from an university event 3 years earlier. We talked and hit it off. I had gained a bit of confidence since now I knew that it was possible for people to be interested in me. I asked out Jeff. I was ready to take on this new challenge. And it was fun flirting. It was less awkward with Jeff and we progressed more like I imagined couples would. In the end it did not work out with Jeff. We dated for a year in which i was away for six months and even before I left I was unsure of how I felt about Jeff. I thought that maybe long distance made me forget him but when I got back and I was not excited to see him I decided to break up. It felt freeing. When I returned Chris had contacted me and wanted to meet up. We barely had contact when I was away. While I dated Jeff, Chris also had been seeing other people. So I thought that we had really gone back to just friends. It also had been almost 2 years since "dated". Ever since I had gotten back from being abroad Chris and I have been meeting up and texting more and more frequently. My parents are immigrants and we speak a different language at home. I had briefly mentioned before that I worry that my parents would not approve a partner that is not from our culture and does not speak our language. Chris has started studying my mother tongue recently. It is not a common language that people study like spanish or french. My delusional brain tells me it is so I would not have to worry if we were together. Well at least it was one of the first thoughts I had when Chris told me. This is when I really started to question if I had ever gotten over Chris or whether I am falling for him again. Recently we have gotten into wordl, again. We always do them at midnight after that we would text a bit and wish eachother good night. I tried to confide in my best friend but he refuses to give me any input and advises me against it without a satisfying reason, quote:" there are plenty fish". BUT I really like this fish. Am I just refusing to listen to reason? I haven't had the courage to talk to other friends about it because I fear they will also advice me against it. This tells me that somehow I also believe it would not work out. One of my theories is that I am almost done with my studies and I probably will leave the city around end of this year. My last relationship did not end bc of the long distance but it definetly did not help. I fear it's fear.😅 I dont know what to do. What if he is just glad I am back? I fear that if I confessed my new/old feelings I will loose him. I just want to know what's wrong with me. Why am I so scared? Other people seem to be able to confess their feelings so well. I would really appreciate an outside perspective on my situation. Thank you!♥️

I (17F) was raised in the United States my whole life. I live in a diverse city, so there were Islamic schools and a significant amount of Muslims at the elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as people of other religions and ethnicities.
I’ve always thought the stories that Islamic teachers and my parents (mainly my mom) taught me were mythical. I didn’t really believe them deep down in my heart, despite saying I was a Muslim and despite saying I believe in the Prophet being so perfect. I truly backed down when my teacher said, “Are you passionately living your life?” I wasn’t. I only said I was Muslim because I wanted to feel safer from my mom’s turbulent temper. I wanted to be respected more, that’s why I wore the hijab voluntarily at the beginning of high school.
When I was in my early teens, I argued back. My mom is the type to argue every other day about the smallest things, including my unacceptable behavior. I have argued and was involved in physical altercations with each of my family members. I’m no saint. But I only retaliate because they say how dumb, crazy, angry, and how much of a disappointment I am. Really, they start the arguments saying how I’m all of these things with baseless “evidence.” When I was younger, I cried a little too much and was quiet. I didn’t listen to directions right away and was too afraid to ask because I was shy. That was enough evidence to berate me about how much of a bad girl I was. Why wasn’t I social? Why wasn’t I trusting adults that took care of me? The devil made me shy, my mom said. I was scared. I argued back because no one else stood up for me, not even my dad or my sister. I looked up to them. Now I don’t. I should’ve been a good little quiet Muslim girl, not one that yells at the top of her lungs at the people who should’ve made her feel safe mentally and emotionally. But no, “I’m only saying what’s best for you. It’s the truth. You must be fixed.”
Fast forward to now, I wear my hair in a different style at school with a silk square scarf because even though I’m not Muslim, I don’t want the attention of the Muslims I know at school. I don’t know what they’ll say or do. My parents and siblings don’t know I do this.
I have a prom and graduation coming up and I don’t want to wear the hijab or my silk square scarf. My parents won’t approve of the latter anyway. I hinted at my dad that I don’t want to wear the hijab by asking what hairstyle I should wear at prom and graduation. He said, “I don’t know!” He has a degree in Islamic Studies. I’m surprised he didn’t react negatively. BUT, my mom and sister would tell me to wear the hijab, or else I’m collecting sins. My sister doesn’t wear the hijab. I literally don’t know what to do about this. I know this will lead to a huge argument. Yes, I can NOT go to prom, but I paid a lot of money for it. (No prom date, just going with friends).
My overall plan is to find a well-paying job and save enough money to move out and pay rent in another apartment. Even though I will carefully and discreetly move out, this would still lead to a fallout and a huge ultimatum to force me to stay in the same small apartment we lived in for several years.
I do have two interview offers. I’ll give you guys updates.
This is also important: I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder 1 over a year ago. They still don’t want to hear how this disorder affects me because I’m “normal” now. I just have to pray away the negative thoughts, my mom says. Don’t worry, I’m medicated. And take my pills on time.
I’m lucky that I live in a western country. I can methodically move out. But, I feel guilty because I know this action will make my family look bad in front of their friends and family in their home country and the US. I’m almost there, but the future is unclear. Being afraid is an understatement.

So it’s been a few years since this happened. I won’t say this was my first time ever dealing with a crazy boomer, nor was it my first time dealing with a racist.
But it was by far the most direct and unsolicited example of racism that I have ever experienced.
So it was 2020. I had just quit my previous job a week prior due to demanding to much for the pay.
So I found myself in need of another job.
Started filling out apps hours at a time.
Found a local guy who needed a window washer of his all business.
Simple job, simple hours.
5:30am till $12:30pm, clean a maximum of 25 windows each per location, about 3-6 locations a day. And it payed a steady wage that was an improvement for me at the time.
The guy was overall very nice, very friendly, basically came off as much of a Non-boomer as a baby boomer can be without loosing the label entirely.
Or So it Seemed…..
Day 1: arrive to his house at 5:30, lets me in his house and says I can take a seat until he’s ready to go.
The first 🚩 reveals itself.
What is it you might ask is gonna drive a boomer to pay me to sit on my ass in his house? For what ended up by 30 minutes?
Fox & Friends
Had no idea what the show was at first, but quickly figured out knowing Fox News in a. General sense at the time.
On the way to the first stop, I think to myself “do I really wanna work for this guy? This guy? I guess it is just a tv show(how naive in hindsight). Would I be a bitch for quoting over a tv show?”
I push past these thoughts and just try to get to work.
He shows me how to clean the windows. I go about my day listening to music via my earphones, the rest of the day goes on without incident.
Day 2: arrive at his house again at 5:30, yet another showing of Fox & Friends.
This time I knew what they were discussing, and knew it was bullshit. I had read up on the topic previously for other reasons.
I use this opportunity to probe the boomer for his reactions.
He gives the exact type of response you’d think, but nothing too batshit. Stating annoying and selfish, but not overtly bigoted.
Next we go to our first 2 stops, get done pretty quick.
My earphones died on me. So no more music for the rest of the day. Gotta actually “enjoy” the presence with the boomer.
The second 🚩 Reveals itself.
That’s when out of nowhere he exclaims “oh we gotta change the channel” and changes the radio station quite rapidly.
I do not remember the channel nor the program. But they said directly “and we’re back with Fox News “——“. I’ll admit I was annoyed at this point with my music dead, it getting hot out, and didn’t wanna hear more droning on from Fox News. Sue me.
The day goes on from there. My annoyance begins spinning my head in circles.
I should just quit! It’s only been 2 days?
But this guy sucks! But don’t all bosses Suck?
I’m gonna hate it here if I stay! you’ll look like a bitch if you quit early!
On and on, back and forth. For hours.
It’s now 12:30pm, we are wrapping up our last stop. So old rich ladies gigantic England like era house. Way too many windows, each with the grids so it’s like dozens of tiny separate windows.
Literally I’m still questioning myself the very moment the third 🚩 Shows itself.
We both walk over to his truck with the supplies. Load everything up.
I am now standing across the trucks cab from the boomer. Both doors open, just prior to actually getting in the truck.
There are 3 young boys riding bikes through the neighborhood. 1 Black, 1 White, 1 IDK Mix.
They pass right by us.
The White kid was the one of the 3 boys playing music from a Bluetooth speaker in the basket of his bike.
It was some brand of Rap music. Idk not really my genre. But it wasn’t egregious or swearing.
The boomer Looks backward over his shoulder, then back at me as the boys pass.
“Why you gotta play that kinda of shit kid…….What Color are you???? did you Forget……”
To say I was Blown away by those words in That order. Would be a Frighteningly gross understatement.
So I glossed over the moment entirely, realizing I had no idea were in Wisconsin I was exactly and he was my ride home.
That was far more than I had ever asked for, but it was a definite “Fuck this Shit, I’m Fucking Out!”
So the moment we got back to his house, and my car was within reach.
I grabbed my stuff, and headed towards it.
He said “well that was a mostly good day, I’ll see you tomorrow”
I defaulted to polite Worker training to exit the situation. Thinking I wouldn’t be payed if I made a scene. So merely replied with “actually I don’t believe this job is for me, so I think I’m done”
Nothing else of not happened from there. I know this might not be the most thrilling story, but It was still pretty crazy to say I’ve lived through a crazy boomer story. And figured I’d share, people seem to mildly enjoy the story in real life when I tell it. I did my best to type this in a way to make it slightly more entertaining read, so I hope that came off well.

So I've been dating my gf for a year and she's pretty awesome, but theres one aspect of her thats just strange and its that she often wants me to be toxic to my friends/family - but she doesn't see it as toxic but assertive, and gets upset if I dont 'stand up for myself.'
But I think we have different opinions on what it means to stand up for myself.
So heres what happened yesterday. My friend cut his finger really bad while making food. He went to urgent care but it was closed. So he was sent to emergency at a hospital near where I live instead. Since I live in the hell hole that is Toronto Canada, the wait time he was given was 6 hours.
Now I have medical training. And he knew I lived close so he asked me if I can help him out instead.
Now, Saturday is my gfs only full day she can spend with me. Sunday shes at her church and volunteers. Friday night shes with her friends. Every other day of the week she has her classes during the day and works at night. So we were watching a movie she really likes at the time and wanted me to see. When I got the call from my friend I told her I should at least check if his wound is serious or not. Because if its serious I might be able to talk to emergency people but most likely I cant help. If its not serious I could just take him to my place, sterilize it, and do any mild first aid that might be required.
She was not happy about that. She said he's already at emergency. He can wait a few hours there.
But idk, I just thought that helping my friend out when the hospital is 5 minutes drive away is not a big deal. I decided to go anyway.
It ended up taking longer than 5 minutes cause I couldnt find him. When I did, his hand was wrapped in a towel that was soaked in blood. But when i removed it I was able to determine it wasnt deep enough to need stitches and I could fix it up at home.
Anyway, I took him to our place, and gave him first aid. The whole thing took about 15 minutes. While I was doing it, my gf kept circling us and even made a comment to my friend saying that he panicked cause of such a little wound? But in reality I'm sure that a lot of blood was spurting out cause of where he cut it, and anyone would panic in this case.
When he left he said he'd just take an uber home. Which was nice cause I didn't want to drop him off. But my gf made another jab for no reason and asked him why he can't drive (she can't drive so its a really weird thing to say.)
Afterwards, she asked me to drop her off at her place because she wasn't interested in the movie or staying over anymore. Today she's been ignoring me all day and only messaged once to tell me shes upset because I'm a 'pushover.'
Tbh I am nice to my friends, but theres a difference between that and being a pushover. Tbh, this has happened before in different circumstances and I always feel like I'm right and she's wrong.
Idk, what do you guys think? Am I in the right here.
TLDR: Picked up my friend and helped him out a bit, interrupting my time with gf. Now shes upset I'm a pushover.

So basically im talking abt some aspects in the Game that made me abandon it entirely. I joined onto this when there was no gems nor runes (or whatever they are called) and it was fairly fun, then i eventually lost interest on the game and i got it gettin dust for a while. Then i joined again recently with a friend of mine, and how to put it in. Don't know what happened with 3vs3 touchdown but we didnt ser that on rotation anywhere, 3vs3 teamdeathmatch was fun and played it for a while and then we moved onto 2vs2 teamdeathmatch/Touchdown and dominion and it was horrible, it was by far one of the worst experience i had in a game recently. Maybe it was badluck but the only thing we had in dominion was teams with max level characters/abilities and runes + Gems and we (with nearlt no runes), we had no chance and it was ofc team clans one after other, into touchdown it was even worse, with two matches and one with two guys (both clan leaders) using zeppetta and narsha maxed, emote spamming and locking our characters (with barely any skill at level two) on spawn, me and my friend needed to quit game bc if we got afk the game just restarts and again on the match with both guys spamming emotes to bots and not winning on purpose.
It was pretty sad and i don't think i gonna touch the game, it's fun sometimes when the teams are barely matched but i can't compete with those guys with all of that things that boost their stats, my level account btw is 77 if thats mean smth. Just saying it's kind of sad iml how this game that once was fun turned into a circus of toxic people (from my experience i had playing it). About that last touchdown game spamming emotes and basically abusing game mechanics, it was what makes me stop playing, i have screenshots but i don't wanna make personal attacks or smth like that, i reported them too but i don't think (like in most games) it gonna do anything, so thats all. Just a reflection on my last games and please guys don't be toxic or extend the matches on purpose.
Btw sorry for the shitty english, not my Main language.

I posted two weeks ago about my finger tattoos. I appreciate the supportive comments so much.
A lot of people suggested I get bloodwork done due to the artist's poor hygiene practices, which I did at a walk-in the same day. We haven't gone over the results formally yet, but when I called to follow up they did say it wasn't urgent, so I'm taking that as a good sign. I'll know for sure when I go to my appointment on Sunday, and I'll update again if something does come up. Until then, no news is good news.
I also texted the artist about my tattoos. You guys figured out pretty quickly who the artist was. I had kind of put together that he was struggling in his private life, but the comments really shed light on how bad it is. I sent him the following with a photo of my blown out tattoos:
"Hi X, I wanted to reach out with an update on the finger tattoos. Unfortunately they didn't work out. The blowout hasn't budged and is quite significant - multiple people have mentioned thinking I had smudged pen on my fingers and were surprised to learn they are tattoos. I've made the difficult decision to have them removed.
I will not ask you for anything and would like you to keep the money. But I have heard about your reputation before and during your struggle with addiction. Things have really declined. I understand it and have struggled with addiction myself in the past. I'm disappointed that it has affected me and my sacred tattoos. Please consider the full effects of what has happened here and why. You have support, a lot of people care about you and your health."
He hasn't responded and I'm not going to push. He also hasn't posted on his Instagram since, but he hadn't for a bit before I texted him so I'm not going to jump to this being why.
I wouldn't normally share a private conversation about battling addiction, but considering the context of the situation, I figured I would just let people know that he is aware. I won't follow up with a response if he decides to give me one because I feel like this is publicized enough.
Lastly, I mentioned in my text that I am getting them removed. The comments about not feeling bad about removing sacred tattoos when he didn't treat them as sacred to begin with really helped me finalize my decision. I haven't had my assessment yet, but I already feel more confident in my body again. I didn't realize how much my embarrassment was holding me back in quiet ways. I've never really had any major insecurities about my body so it took me a while to realize that's what it was. I'm really hopeful that the removal takes so I can start fresh.
Thank you to everyone who posted. This is going to be an expensive and painful process but I'm looking forward to it.

i'm working on a novel and would like to know if anyone could tell me any improvements i could make to the first chapter and prologue
Prologue
The day had started the same way it had for the past two years. The only difference was that I was going home. The hallway was crowded with people walking to and from their classes. Everyone was crowded next to each other so the halls were making the area feel claustrophobic. All the people talking mixed with the summer heat made me feel like I was locked in a sauna. I walked with Preston to the last class we would ever have together and as usual he was smiling. I never got why he always smiled even in situations where people should be sad he still smiled. He knew what today meant for me and he tried to keep light of the situation. I kept my head down away from what was ahead of me. My mind was too clouded about returning to see my family to notice anything in front of me. I walked into another student. It felt like I had walked into a wall. I knew immediately I had walked into tree. I stumble onto the ground and the commotion around me slows down to make room for us. He turned his bulky body around and apologized profusely without saying a word even though I had walked into him. He helped me off of the ground before hurrying down the hall.
“Alexandria, are you doing okay?” Preston said he had tilted his body downward so I had to look down to look him in his eyes. The way he was standing made him look like an idiot but he didn't seem to care. The way he acted made me laugh, which caused his smile to widen.
“I'm doing fine, just got lost in my head.”
“Thinking about how you’ll leave soon,” he said
“Was it that obvious?” He was the only person I told about me being an exchange student. I came to spend high school in Newkinawa and he was the only person I ever hung out with.
“I see what you mean,” he said “Newkinawa is a beautiful place with beautiful people to live in it…myself included”
“You wish,” I say with a smile we continue walking through the hallway “I'm just not excited to go back yet”
After I say that his smile grows wider “So you will miss me after all”
“I wouldn't say that much” I responded whilst smiling.
We had made it to our last class only to see it closed with a sign labeled “Uma incident” Uma was a student known for messing with the chemistry lab and destroying school property in the process. I've never actually met her but Preston says “She's a little weird but still nice”
“Guess class is canceled for today,” Preston remarked with a smile “Wanna go out to the court till the bell rings.”
“Sure let's go” I respond
The place we ate every day was outside. It used to be a tennis court before I moved in. Now they put trees and flowers all over the place. Preston really liked the blue color of the flowers but it just never clicked for me. I look over at Preston and he's staring up at the sky. There are a number of clouds in almost enough to block the sun but it still pokes its rays through and lands on Preston's face. The clouds swim in front of the sun till they block out the sun's light. Preston faces towards me.
“I'm gonna miss you Alexandria” he says
“You know you can just call me Alex,” I replied. I start to smile again. “I'll miss you too!" He smiles toward me again as we get up to leave as the clouds start to clump together and rain slowly falls. As we're walking back to the school there's a loud tearing sound followed by screams as the ground shakes.
The ground tears itself apart as the dirt and stone erupt from the ground. The sky blackens and a pale blue light escapes the earth. Then creatures erupt from the ground in a violent ejection from the earth creating a white pillar diffusing as they reach higher in the air. Some are clawing their way out of the cracks like maggots out of a corpse. People are swept into the updraft screaming for their lives.
The creatures descend like a tidal wave and tear apart any people caught in their path. They storm out of the crack in hundreds as more cracks in the earth form. Me and Preston started running away as people were screaming behind us. A girl running next to us has her legs slashed by a creature. The monster begins to tear open her chest as she chokes on her own blood. The monster shovels her lungs and innards into its decrepit mouth. Me and Preston keep running until we're met at the entrance of the school and we catch the attention of a monster as it begins to savagely rush toward us. The monster resembles ghosts my father told me about. But this one looks monstrously horrific. It floats in the air and opens its mouth so wide it nearly replaces its entire torso; its jaws hold savage teeth each the same old gray color of its body. Its eyes glow a rotten yellow color through the dark. It stretches out its arms showing its giant hands and claws like fingers. It swipes at us leaving a giant claw mark on the door behind us but Preston ducks my body down to avoid the attack. We run around it as the monster swaps its focus to another bystander. Screaming past us. Me and Preston run into the parking lot as people scream around us. We hide next to a car.
“What the hell is happening!?” I yell to Preston. More of the creatures fly over us and swoop down to people like vultures on roadkill devouring the fleeing people.
Preston starts to breathe heavily ”we need to get out of here and someplace safer”. As we were talking one of the monster phases through the car we were hiding next to forcing us to run into the street.
“Lets go to your house till things cool down” i say to Preston through panted breaths
“Wait couldn't we head to your house instead” Preston says.
“Why would that matter your house is closer anyways” i respond
“But-” Preston is interrupted by two creatures swooping above us to grab another person. The two monsters begin to pull the person apart while he writhes in pain before having his flesh be torn in half and having his organs be devoured.
“Come on lets go!!” I say as I grab his hand and run even faster.
By the time we reach Preston's house any living person is gone. On the street are just corpses laying torn and mutilated on the roads and sidewalk. The air in the neighborhood feels cold despite the season being summer. When I walk down the street I can still hear the occasional horrific wail the monsters give off. We move closer to Preston's house and I can see him sweating. He looked more worried than before when the creatures were chasing us and he kept darting his eyes away from his home.
“Preston, are you feeling okay?” he doesn't respond to my question and keeps darting his eyes. He walks slowly behind me and as I reach for the door handle and when I touch it it feels nearly freezing. I wrap my hoodie around my hand and slowly open the door. The house is quiet so me and Preston creep further into his house. The inside is cold and damp as if we were locked in a freezer. The further we move into the house the louder a subtle chewing sound is heard.
“It sounds like rats are eating a dead cow over there” I whisper. Preston continues to stay silent behind me. We slowly walk closer towards the kitchen and the sound gets louder and louder and louder until we reach the room.
We're met with a rancid smell of vomit and blood. My blood starts to run cold and every instinct in my body is telling me to run. I can feel Preston breathing get heavier as we get closer. We turn the corner and see Preston's mom lying on the ground dead with one of the creatures hunched over slurping her intestines. The sight causes me to vomit alerting the monster to our presence. The creature turns around and its mouth turns into a mortifying grin as it flies into Preston's moms body. The corpse begins to rise and spur splashing blood over the kitchen. When the corpse stops spasming it picks itself up from the ground and with glazed over eyes it holds its intestines in its hand and gives us the same grin it did when it was outside her body. The possessed corpse lunges at me and starts to chase me around the kitchen. The body is running into the walls and cabinets spraying its blood and other loose organs around the area as I'm avoiding its assault. The corpse leans over and ejects one of its loose intestines towards me, wrapping me in it. It pulls me towards it so fast I'm flung towards the ground. The corpse limbers over to me and raises its free hand aiming for my head. The creature's deranged smile causes the corpse’s cheeks to tear apart. It places both of its bloodied and demented hands on my face and starts to press my skull into the ground. I struggle to breathe. The room starts to get dark and blood escapes my head.
Until Preston jumps on top of his mothers corpse with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabs it in the head. The possessed body tries to shake him off but he keeps stabbing, blood gets in on his face and tears start to escape his eyes. The creature violently ejects from the corpse's mouth causing her head to nearly explode and Preston stops stabbing the body. The body falls over in a splash of blood and organs. The monster leaves phasing through the roof leaving Preston crying over his mother's body. As the blood mixes with the tears he collapses to his knees crying. I walk over and hug him as the air around us turns bitter and the chill of death leaves the room and us with it.
Chapter 1 Eclipse
It's been 2 months since the apocalypse started. We've kept ourselves alive by looting grocery stores and houses, we hide from the creatures as we have no way to fight back against them. Preston came up with the idea to call them glanter’s. He’s looking better since we left his family home but I can tell something is wrong with him that he's not telling me. Everytime I ask him about it he tells me it's no big deal. I asked him earlier today and he just told me
“don't worry about it, I'm over it” without even looking at me. Now we're walking through the street and I'm walking behind Preston, I can barely see his head past the giant bag we're both carrying on our backs we use to carry supplies. I look up at the sky and it's still pitch black except for the moon giving us any amount of light. Preston turns around to face me.
“Let's check out that house, it might have some cool stuff in it” he points to a white house to our right. The house is a two story building with steps leading to the front door. There's a generator poking out from the backyard. The driveway is empty save for a couple of dried blood stains and tire marks. It's similar to the other houses in the neighborhood except for a couple broken windows.
“Sure why not” We head over to the house and I see something shining on the side of the house in the corner of my eye. I turn my head to look at it closer but it quickly disappears before I can see it clearly.
“Probably squirrel or something” I mumble to myself. Preston walks up the stairs to the house and I walk up the steps behind him as a breeze blows past my face. Preston tries to turn the door knob but the door is locked. I start to pull out a lockpick I grabbed at the store earlier. I motion towards Preston to move out of the way as I kneel down to pick the lock. It takes me a couple of minutes to unlock the door so I walk inside the house and Preston follows behind me while closing and locking the door. The doorway of the house leads to a dark room so I take a flashlight out of my bag to illuminate the area. Were put into the living room and bookshelves are on the walls and a large TV sat in front of a large black couch with smaller chairs surrounding it. Dust is covering every surface of the room and spiderwebs litter the corners of the walls. The area smells like moth balls and there's a lack of blood anywhere nearby.
“Guess the owners got out before the Glanter’s got in, '' I say to Preston. When he doesn't respond I turn around and he's already looking further into the house. When I find him he's managed to find a flight of stairs that lead to a lower portion of the house.
“I'll check on him later,” I think to myself as I headed towards the kitchen to see if we could restock on food. I walk past a bedroom and remark on how childish it looked. The walls were painted with blue and green stripes and a bunk bed sat on the right wall. There's a chest at the foot of the bed so I walk over and lift the top off of it. The box is layered with children's toys, a multitude of dolls, bears, and figures all jut out of the box. I notice a small robot toy and inspect it in my hands.
The cold metal makes my hand shiver and the sharp body shape makes the robot bigger than my hand. There's red lining around the robot's buttons surrounded by the cold gray of the robot's “skin”. It reminds me of a toy my little brother had. My heart feels heavy as I worry about what happened to my family. If they're alive, dead, or worse…possessed. The thoughts send a chill down my spine but I push them aside for now. I put the toy in my bag and exit the bedroom.
I can see the kitchen is down the hallway so I walk down the hall and enter. The kitchen is pretty clean except for a couple of dishes in the sink and the dust. There's a table seated for 3 people in the center of the room. I start opening the cabinets in search for any food or water. There's boxes of cereal leftover on top of shelves and a mix of chip bags and cookies in neat boxes stationed in the cabinets.
“Score,” I say to myself as I begin to put the snacks into my bag. When the cabinets are empty I look inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge ran out of power so most of the food inside is rotted. There are a couple of bottles of water in the front so I shove those in my bag. There's also a bag of oranges that still seem to be healthy in the back. I grab them and toss them on the table. There's rotten sandwich meat hidden in the drawer of the fridge.it smells like a dumpster outside of a butcher shop. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. I look around the kitchen for any bread with no luck.
I continue to look through the fridge until I hear Preston scream from another room. Immediately I bolt out of the kitchen leaving my bag behind and run towards the lower part of the house. I run down the stairs and nearly trip on the steps. The stairs lead to a big room. There are posters to tv shows and movies I don't recognize. The walls are painted black and there's a bear skin rug on the floor. I notice Preston standing next to a really big TV hyperventilating. I walk over to him and ask him.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
He talks through deep breaths “I… saw a… spider.”
“What?!” I respond in confusion.
“It was really big and I had jumped at my face”
“Sure it was.” I say while laughing “Let's go upstairs there's some food in the fridge we can eat”
“Wait, I think you should check this out.” He says while pointing towards one of the walls. I grab Preston's flashlight off the floor and face it towards the wall. Hanging halfway off the wall is a large map labeled Newkiwana scavenger hunt of 76.
“I think we should take it,” Preston says “You can read a map right?”
“A little but I'm not the best at it,” I say to him “can you read a map?”
“it shouldn’t be too hard it’s mainly pictures any way I'm sure I can figure it out”
I walk over to the wall where the map is hung there are trophies covering tables and shelved in their own personal cases one of them reads “1st place 100-meter swimming competition for 1986 Zack Hemmingway” and another one reads “2nd place 100-meter swimming competition for 1989 Zack Hemmingway”
“Guess this guy really liked swimming,” Preston remarks while staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. All of them are about the same person in swimming competitions. All labeled different things like “a new record for Zack “the dolphin” Hemmingway”,
‘Zach Hemmingway our star plans for the future” all the newspapers are about this kind he has paler skin and a bulky enough build to swim pretty well. Most of the pictures have him coming out of the water in a pool, his long black hair soaked and sitting at his shoulders. Another one has him sitting at a desk over a pile of books and his hair in a knot , “vicious wipeout ends the Dolphins career”, and “ex-swim champ Zack Hemmingway found in a drunken stupor outside strip club.
“Everyone has their own hobbies I guess,” I say as I take the map off of the wall and fold it up. “Sucks what happened to Zack though” I walked over to Preston’s bag and put the rolled map in one of the pockets. I walk back up the stairs and Preston grabs his bag and follows behind me.
We make our way towards the kitchen and Preston starts looking through the fridge for anything to eat. I grab an orange from the table and throw it at his head. The fruit bounces off his head and rolls on the floor. He turns around and grabs the fruit from the floor
“Why did you throw an orange at me?”
“It's the only food we have unless you plan on eating spoiled a sandwich“ He starts to peel it while walking towards the table. We both take a seat and start to eat the oranges from the bag. He plants his feet on top of the table and bites into the fully peeled orange. I grab a water bottle from a bag and start to drink from it as Preston says.
“I saw a dvd player in that man cave downstairs we could watch a movie if it still has power”
“Sure it could be fun.” Me and Preston spend the rest of our time eating until the bag of oranges is emptied and we head back downstairs. Preston grabs the DVD player from under the table and blows the dust off the top of it; he plugs it into the wall as I plop myself onto the couch. He plugs the DVD player into the TV and sits on the recliner next to me. He presses a few buttons on the remote and the TV lights up. I squint my eyes at how bright it is. It's the most amount of light I've seen that didn't come from a flashlight. I notice there's a box filled with DVDs. I pull the box over towards me. I ruffle through the box and see movies like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, and Home alone.
“Dude some of these came out just before the world turned inside out” I say to him.
“Really? Let's play one.” He responds. I toss him Terminator 2 and he puts it into the DVD player.
We spend the next couple hours watching movies and laughing together. It's some of our only moments of peace we’ve had since the end of the world and to me it's the most fun I've had yet. We're putting in the next DVD when there's a loud crash outside and the TV shuts off. Preston goes behind it to see if it's still plugged in.
“I think the generator outside is busted” i say
“It seems that way” Preston replies while backing away from the tv” i'm gonna go check it out”
“Don't worry I got it” I say as I hop out of my chair. Preston waves goodbye as I head up the stairs. I make my way back through the hallway leading to the living room and front door. I reach the door and start to turn the knob. I open the door wide as a car speeds down the street. I step out of the door to see what had happened when I hear the screech of a glanter. It cuts through the sky like an unholy opera singer. A group of them fly by and chase the car as I rush back inside the house. I slam the door shut and look through the window as I see a couple of smaller glanters grab and shake the car violently looking for the driver. They tear at it, ripping off doors and breaking the windows. The driver screams as the seats cover with blood and he's ripped out of the car as multiple smaller glanters tear and bite off parts of his body like piranha's until his body is completely devoured. I run back to the man cave to warn Preston about what had happened. I spot him laying in his chair spinning a DVD disc on his finger.
“It's not safe outside right now”
“Why not?
“There's glanter's outside, they just ate a dude in his car”
“Did they see you come inside?”
“I don't think so , they flew off before I went inside.”
“well we're not dead so I'm gonna say they didn't see you. But let's stay here for a couple more hours just to be safe”
“Sounds good i'm gonna go find the master bedroom.” I start to walk back up the stairs to the house
“ Hold on why do you get the master bedroom” Preston says while walking after me.
“Because I'm gonna find it first” I say as I start to run to find the bedroom. He chases after me in pursuit of the bedroom. Me and Preston run around the house looking for the master bedroom. We look through room after room finding closets, the garage, a bathroom and a door leading to a balcony in the back of the house. I manage to run into the bedroom and yell out to Preston.``Found it!!”
He comes walking into the room breathing heavily from the running. We both check out the room. The walls are painted a cream yellow and the bed takes up most of the room's center. The bed has burgundy sheets poking out from its bottom and a quilt with multi-colored floral designs lay sprawled out on top of it. There's a wardrobe built into the wall and a black leather couch sits comfortably on the left wall.
“Dibs on the bed” I say as I jump on top of it. I stretch out on top of the quilt and search for a comfortable part to sleep in.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?” Preston complains
“You can sleep on the couch it looks soft enough” I respond while pointing towards the couch “I saw some spare blankets in one of the closets”
“Alright i’ll be right back” he mumbles to himself “why do i always get the couch”
“ I'll be right here if you need me,” i call after him. I sit up on the bed and start to look around the room more. I notice the entrance to the wardrobe is cracked open slightly. I hop out of the bed and grab a flashlight from my bag as I walk into the wardrobe. I turn on my flashlight and stare in awe at how many clothes are in there. The room is only half as big as the bedroom but it's still bigger than any closet I've ever had. The wardrobe is full of shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes for men and women. I immediately start to look through the shoes to see if any fit my size. I throw a pair of black high heels behind me as Preston finds me in the wardrobe. He looks around before asking me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a new pair of clothes to wear cause I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for waaaaay too long”
“Fair enough. Is there any guy stuff in there?”
“Yeah right there” I hook my thumb behind me to point to the other end of the closet.
“I'm sure they won't mind if we take a couple of things…they're probably dead by now anyways,” Preston says with a slight grin on his face. The way he said made me spin my head to look at him but he was already on the opposite end of the wardrobe looking at suits.
I shake away the thought and continue looking for any pair of sneakers in my size. 40 minutes pass before I walk out of the wardrobe holding a new pair of jeans and a black guns-N-roses t-shirt. I toss the clothes on top of the bed and check to see if the shower in the bathroom still works. I turn the dial and wait for a moment. The shower head chokes a little before water comes pouring out. I reach my hand under the showerhead to feel the water. The water is cold, it causes my hand to shiver when I take it out. I shake the water off and say to myself.
“Good enough” as I start to take off my old clothes and get in the shower. The cold water bounces off my skin, it sends shivers down my spine but I still get the old dirt from the last few months off of me. I step out and see a couple of dry towels hanging off of the door. I grab one and dry my body off and grab another to wrap around my head and dry my hair. I step out of the bathroom and Preston is still inside the wardrobe. I put on my new clothes while his back is turned and walk over towards him when I'm finished.
“Still haven't found anything,” I ask him
He turns around “Nothing yet, the only thing interesting was this coat.” He holds a leather coat up to me. The coat is made of black leather and has a skull covered with blue flames on the back. There's a black shirt inside the coat with a skeleton hand making a thumbs-up embroidered on the front.
“ That's pretty cool, it's better than what you're wearing right now at least” he's outfitted in a blue hoodie with holes on the chest and tears at the sleeves. He also has a shirt with a faded picture of a blue flower printed on it.
“I guess you're right” he gets up from the floor and exits the wardrobe. He lays the clothes on the couch along next to the blanket and pillow he brought into the room.
“The shower works so you can get yourself clean In there,” I say to him
“You know, a shower sounds really good right now.” He gets up from the floor and grabs a pair of pajama pants that were laying next to him. He leaves the wardrobe and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After a moment the water turns on and I hop on the bed to get ready to sleep. I squirm myself into the quilt and rest my head against one of the pillows. I shut my eyes and fall asleep listening to the passive sound of the shower like rain on a car.
I'm in a void. It feels like I'm standing in a puddle of water that reaches to my knees. I wade my way forward looking around for anything in the darkness. In the distance I can see 3 figures l. I moved closer to them and their silhouettes get clearer. I realize they are my dad and brothers. I start to run towards them kicking up water behind me until something grabs my leg. It pulls down violently forcing me under the water without a breath of air. I kick at the thing grabbing me until something grabs my other leg. I look down and see two glanter's each with a monstrous smile on their faces. They stare back at me and one of them tugs my leg harder than before and tears it off of my body. The water around me turns red as the glanter laugh's. The other smiles wider as it starts to fling me around the water forcing any air left in my lungs to be forced out as I scream in pain. The glanter throws me away and I can see my family slowly fade into the distance as I'm flown away.
I struggle to swim back to where I was, one of my legs is missing and the other is broken. The glanter's find me again and I try to get to the surface to escape them. I'm flapping my arms in any attempt to escape as one of the glanter's flies in front of me and grabs my arm. I look at the monster with tears in my eyes as it bites my arm and tears my body away from it. It flings my body away and with my remaining arm I clutch the wound as the water floods into my body leaving me in the void I started in. I look around and the glanter's seem to have left. I turn behind me and see my family again, this time I'm closer than before.
I grit my teeth and drag my body towards them slowly as I leave a trail of blood and tears behind me. I finally reach my family and grab one of my father's shoes. I stare up and he looks at me. His stare causes me to feel cold as a grotesque smile grows on his face. I stare in shock as my brothers each have the same look as my father.
I shoot up from my sleep panting heavily in a cold sweat.
“It was just a dream..just a dream…just a dream” I look at my hands as tears fall into them. I look around the room and see Preston sleeping peacefully on the couch. The room feels frozen in place as a chill runs down my spine. I get out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom. I make my way through the dark hallway and find the entrance to the balcony I saw earlier. I creak open the screen door and head outside. The Balcony is pretty large, about the size of the kitchen in the house. There are some chairs knocked over next to a table and I pick one up to sit on it. I look out into the expanse of the neighborhood, houses lined up next to each other, dozens broken apart by roads, and dead bodies scattered across the roads.
I look up in the sky and sit back in the chair. The sky looks empty except for the moon giving this world its only source of light. Without the moon, we’d be left in darkness. It hangs in the sky alone, no stars, no clouds, nothing but itself, and the void of the sky. I think back about the dream I had. My dad and my brother's all dead and possessed and then they kill me. I start to tear up thinking about it. I try to wipe away the tears but it’s no use. I'm too scared for my family. I don't know where they are if they're alive if they're worried about me I don't know anything! I start to quietly cry into my hands. I don't know how long I'm sitting there until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to face it and I see Preston. He was smiling and looking at me. I turn away to wipe my tears and he walks next to me.
“I heard you sneaking out of the bedroom so I followed you to see where you were going.” he says “but that's not my question.” he pauses and looks at me “my question is what’s got you feeling so down?” he leans over the railing of the balcony
“It's nothing, I just came out here to clear my head.” I say as more tears escape from my eyes in big slow drops that ride down the sides of my face.
“if you don't feel like telling me you don't have to but i'll be here if you ever change your mind”. He looks up at the moon before turning to face me and his smile widens “I'll always be here with you…trust me I'm not going anywhere”
I stare up at him and wipe away my tears as a smile grows on my face to match his. I get up and stare over the balcony with him. “So where are we heading next?” I say to him, Preston pulls the map we got from the man cave downstairs out from his pocket.
“After I got out of the shower I decided to take a look at the map for anything interesting we could see.”
“Ok did you find anything?” i ask
“I did,” he points at a spot on the right of the map. “We should head to the museum”
“I didn't want to go to a museum before the apocalypse why would i want to go now?'' I ask him.
“Well the best part of museums is the cool stuff right”
“Yeah what about it”
“The only problem is that you could only look at the fossils and armor but you could never take them.”
“So you want to rob a museum?” Prestons eyes light up at the question
“Exactly they might have a really cool sword I could use, or I could sharpen a dinosaur tooth and use that as a weapon, there might be a cursed shield that can summon the dead to fight for you. This opportunity is too good to pass up. We need to go!”
“That does seem pretty cool but wouldn't carrying that stuff weigh us down. What if a glanter is chasing us and we can't run fast enough because of the stuff we took from the museum.”
“We’ll only take things that are light. Even then I could just block the glanter with my newly acquired 2000 year old shield.”
“Fair enough we can go in a couple hours” I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Cause I'm feeling way too tired to walk all the way over there right now.”
“Alright i'm heading back to my couch and THEN we’ll head out to the museum” he leaves the balcony and heads back to the master bedroom leaving me alone on the balcony.
“Thanks Preston I'm not leaving either” I say into the sky. I turn around and walk back inside the house, closing the balcony door behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and Preston is hunched over and holding a flashlight looking at the map. He’s drawing lines through roads and marking X’s in different areas.
“What are the X’s for?” i ask him
“They’re places that glanter’s usually stay around. I'm marking them off so we remember not to go through them, or at least be more cautious.”
“Cool. Did you find where we are right now?” He points to an area where the lines all converge out of.
“Right around here is where the neighborhood ends. So if we follow this path we can make it to the museum in one piece” I pat him on the back and take the map from his hands.
“Get some sleep Preston, we have a full day tomorrow” he grins to himself before laying down on the couch. I put the map back into my bag and hop on the bed to get to sleep. I cover my body in the quilt and roll over facing away from Preston as he falls asleep. I nestle myself into the bed and slowly fall asleep to get ready for the next day.
I'm awoken by Preston shaking the bed I'm sleeping on. My eyes open and the room is foggy, I wipe away the sleep from my eyes and focus my attention towards Preston. He's practically jumping out of his skin with excitement, he's already fully dressed for the trip and shaking the bed with a wide smile on his face.
“Ok ok i'm up the air feels heavy as a groggy feeling fills my body. I wipe my eyes and the room starts to clear up. I turn to face Preston. He's still shaking my bed to wake me up, he’s already fully dressed and nearly jumping out of his skin in excitement.
“Ok ok, i'm up you can stop shaking the bed” i say
“Then get up we’ve got a long walk ahead of us” he says as he stops shaking the mattress. He grabs the map from my bag and points to one of the red lines.
“We're gonna follow this way to the museum. We’ll move past the hotel around the ice skating rink and around the park. We’ll mainly stick to walking through the streets, we might have to go rooftop hopping to avoid any glanter’s if we see them but i'm sure we won’t reach that point.” he explains
“Wait, wait, wait, why are avoiding the skating rink and the park” i ask
“ everytime we go near the park there's weird noises and light coming out of it”
“And why can't we go to the ice skating rink?”
“I didn't think it would be important”
“It couldn't hurt to check it out at least”
“Fine we could make a detour”
“Ok and how do you plan on getting on top of roofs?”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get to it”
“Ok man as long as you’re sure '' I yawn and step out of the bed. Preston starts to put the map in his bag. I walk into the bathroom with my clothes and change out of my pajamas. Minutes later I walk out and see Preston sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs.
“Finally you're out” he smiles at me before handing me my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. We took a last look inside the kitchen to see if we missed anything. Afterwards we leave for the outside. The cold air bites at my face but Preston walks down the stairs, his face buried in the map. I jog to catch up to him as we both head into the street.
“Hey Preston, could I see the map?”
“Sure” he hands over the map and continues walking. I look at the map and the numerous lines drawn on roads. I look at the corner of the map and notice a small map key with numerous symbols for different areas like a library, school, hospital, and more. There's even a way to tell how far away each location is. The text reads “1 inch=5 miles” I quickly count how far we are from the museum.
“Dude this museum is like 100 miles away.”
“Yep it'll be a long walk, it'll take us a while to get there”
“Did you plan on us walking there the whole time?”
“We might find bikes or something.” he pauses “well i did think we would walk the whole way”
“This is gonna take us weeks to get there!”
“Did you have anything else planned?”
“Well…i guess not but we should still try to find some bikes or something”
“Ok if we see any way to travel faster we’ll take it”
“Alright cool” I hand him the map back and he folds it back up and puts it in his bag. We walk further until we leave the gated neighborhood we started in. Preston takes the map back out and looks at it before he turns right and continues walking. I follow him staring forward at the expanse of the road. The outside of the neighborhood is surrounded by roads all leading to different parts of Newkinawa. We walk past a sign that reads “Coretown 20 miles ahead” I nudge Preston towards the sign and he checks the map again.
“Yep, the museum’s in Coretown. Would you believe the residents were pretty proud of it. Should be a fun place to explore” he says
“Yeah but it’ll take us a million years to get there.” i complain
“Lighten up, I'm sure it will be worth it”. We continue walking down the road slowly making our way to Coretown.

This morning I got in the good ol group finder for Vet Dreadsail Reef. It's the only trial I haven't completed. I've joined various runs before and made it to finial boss a few times but still haven't gotten the clear for different reasons.
Anyways title says "must know mechs". This is key to the story. Took about 30 mins for group to fill and we all go in. 11/12 of us go off the boat and fly through the mobs. Right before we go into the cavern I see a message pop up in group chat "hey guys, how do I get off the boat". I guess I was the only one to see it. So were at 1st bosses and lead tank, off tank and a dps are on voice chat and were figuring out who's going where and all that. MT asks where the other healer is. OT asks who it is and sure as shit its the guy who didn't know how to get off the boat. I say what he said and they think he was just trolling. Turns out he wasn't. He was still on the boat. So we start to pull him in. We eventually die. It's pointed out that 2nd healer, boat guy, is rocking a bow. Now I'm not up to par on the latest healing in game as I've never played that role but I'm pretty sure a bow isn't the weapon of choice amongst the healing community. Start again and die again. Leader kicks 2nd healer and then a bunch of folks left.
Now it's just 6 of us. 2 tanks and 4 dps. After much discussion the strategy to use companions is employed. We got bosses to about 60% before we wiped. I had so much fun during that portion. The burn was great for just 4 of us and the laughs were constantly coming. Yeah we got smashed but it was no lie the most fun I've had in a trial.

Obviously if this occurs again, I’ll go to the doctor but for now, it was a one-off thing. I’m sure many of you know that when trans guys take testosterone, we grow a micropenis - some larger than others. Needless to say, after getting my sex partner off last week, I was hard as rock and as erect as I’ve ever been. But, as soon as I started to be touched, my T dick began to ache. Then it felt like something was squeezing it hard, all the way into an area where my balls would be. I had to stop all activity and stood up and started pacing around. It was embarrassing. My partner said it sounded like I had blue balls from being hard for too long but not cumming. Is that what it feels like?? It wasn’t as bad as kidney stone pain but it was intense enough that I nearly passed out for a second thinking my dick was going to break. I can affirm that I’ve cum multiple times since then and been okay but WTF. I would’ve asked other trans guys but none of them actually know what blue balls or delayed ejaculation feel like for cis men. Help a brother out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5HBx6PSjlY
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5x Classic strength & conditioning programs using the Clean + Press
Each program 4 weeks long
‘THE GIANT X’ https://salutis.kartra.com/page/giant-x
3x strength & conditioning programs using the Clean + Press and Press variations and more loading variety
Each program is 8 weeks long
Kettlebell GHFL https://go.chasingstrength.com/kettlebell-ghfl-4/
3x ballistics-based fat loss programs that incidentally make you more conditioned and stronger
Each program is 12 weeks long
Kettlebell MAXIMORUM https://go.chasingstrength.com/kettlebell-maximorum-e/
12-week “Ultimate” KB program
Uses Double Clean + Press, Double Front Squat, Single Snatch
3x Nutrition plans included
Strength coach Mark Rippetoe says, “Stronger people are harder to kill.”
StrongFirst says, “Be anything you want to be, but be strong first.”
And yet our society is OBSESSED with “weight loss.”
I’ve written recently about the importance of getting rid of stomach fat for health and staving off death.
I’ve even written over the last 6 months or so about getting rid of that stomach fat as fast as possible simply because it is so detrimental to your health, AND…
It inhibits your ability to get stronger.
Yet I’m known as the “double kettlebell strength guy.”
So what’s the deal?
Should YOU pick a side?
Do you HAVE TO pick a side?
Even though our modern world is hell-bent on “this vs. that”... “Us vs. Them”...
I say NO, you don’t HAVE to.
You can subtly (or not) BIAS your training to one side or the other, IF you know how to program correctly.
In fact, back in 2010, I put out the first “strength-based fat loss program” - Kettlebell Burn…
Which got people A LOT stronger, while stripping off body fat. (Many even used it for the RKC kettlebell certification prep and crushed their certs.)
And if you “dial in” your nutrition?
Well, that’s the “magic” right there:
Maximum Strength Training + Supportive Nutrition.
Case in point - got this email from Verrico about his experience using a “pure strength” program - ‘THE GIANT 3.0’ and cleaning up his nutrition:
As you can see, even though he lost 5.5lbs of scale weight and 1.5 inches from his waist… He turned his old 5RM into a brand spanking new 10RM in just 4 weeks.
So, look, you DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE.
You can be STRONG and LEAN.
And more importantly, you CAN focus on both at the same time, if you know what you’re doing.
You CAN HAVE the BEST OF BOTH WORLDS.
You just have to know how to do it.
Hope this helps.
Stay Strong,
Geoff
P.S. One of the reasons Kettlebell Burn 2.0 worked so well for people was not JUST the programming, but it gave them an adjustable and customizable nutrition template that freed them from the “tyranny of dieting.”